Residue-Specialized Membrane Poration Kinetics of Melittin and Its Variants: Insight from Mechanistic Landscapes *

Zhi-Xiong Deng,Jing-Liang Li,Bing Yuan,Kai Yang

Fig. 2 (Color online) Membrane poration of different peptides at varying $P/L$ ratios. (a) Probability of membrane poration under the action of melittin and its variants with various $P/L$ ratios. For each parameter, three independent runs are performed for statistical analysis. Different colors are used to represent different types of pores. (b) Snapshots of two types of membrane pores. For clarification, only lipid head groups (blue: PO$_4$ group; orange: NC$_3$ group) and peptides are shown. (c) Time-dependent evolution of pore size under the action of melittin or MelP5, indicating the formation of transient or stable pore, respectively. Central lines are bold to guide eyes. (d), (e) Thinning and stretching (indicated by the area per lipid, APL) of lipid bilayer membranes under the action of peptides with various $P/L$ ratios.